Sermon for August 29th (Sent out for Mission)

Are you a follower of Jesus Christ? (Pause) I’m not asking you if you are a Christian; I’m asking if you are a follower of Jesus Christ? For those of you who have been baptized, you were named and claimed by God Himself, cleansed from all your sin, past/present and future, and given a promise to have faith in: the promise of eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ alone. At baptism, you were reborn a child of God, you were sealed by the Holy Spirit and you marked with the cross of Christ forever: you become a Christian. But I believe that many Christians, including all of us here today, have a very difficult time actually becoming followers of Jesus Christ.

Will you be a follower of Jesus? This morning, I want you to consider three important what being a follower of Jesus means. Followers of Jesus go to places they never intended on going, using their gifts for the sake of serving others with their eyes locked on their leader, their provider, their protector and their savior. You were called in today, to be sent out in mission.

According to the gospel of Luke, chapter 9, As Jesus and his disciples were walking along the road, a man said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” What does it mean to follow Jesus Christ? For many, it means being squeezed out of this world, placed on the margins of society, finding yourself in neighborhoods you never wanted to visit, discovering yourself far away from every home you ever knew. Will you be a follower of Jesus Christ?

Jesus points out that in this world everyone knows their place, even the very animals of the field, such as the fox, and the birds of the air have a home that they know. The cattle in the fields follow the same path each day, grazing across the countryside, but they know their way back to their resting place at the end of the day. Some birds migrate over thousands of miles and over many months only to return to the nests that they made the year before. They know where they belong. The know where home is.


As a Christian, especially a Christian in America, you may also know where you belong. You know where home is. It may be a very comfortable experience to walk into this church on Sunday mornings. But this also creates a problem. A lot of other people don’t feel like they “belong” anywhere, especially not in a church, because of what they have done in their past, how they are living or what their last name is. That’s how this world works: everyone knows their place. “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests” Jesus says. But Jesus put all these cultural understandings and traditions in the toilet as he brought the kingdom of God into this world. The Pharisees, the religious leaders, thought they “belonged” with Jesus inside the temple, but he kept hanging out with the sinners, prostitutes and tax collectors in their houses. Will you be a follower of Jesus Christ?

Being a Christian is important. We come into this place, into this church, to become Christians. It’s not the only place we could go, but it is a very good place. We come in to be inspired by God’s Word, reconnected to God’s people and empowered in our serving. But being a follower of Jesus Christ is not about coming in, it’s about being sent out. Where are you beng sent? The last few weeks, we’ve talked about being sent out to speak, sent out to lead, sent out to bear fruit, and sent out to give. This week, I’d like to talk to you about something that I believe God is passionate about as much as anything else: we are sent out for mission!

It’s easy for us to say that we love mission or say that we want to follow Jesus, but when the details come out about what that means, we shut up and stop saying anything. To follow Jesus wherever he goes means to join him with “no place to lay his head”. Each of us has particular comforts in our lives that we do want to give up easily. And, as Jesus points out, “Where your heart is, there is your treasure also.”

When a certain ruler asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus explained that he needed to sell all that he owned and distribute the money to the poor. Then, Jesus said, “come follow me.” Why did this person need to sell that he owned? Because that is where this man’s greatest assets were laid. Jesus’ answer would have been different for the widow who gave all she had to the temple treasury. Her greatest assets were not laid up in money. What do you hold to be dearest in life? How would you feel if Jesus told you that following Him meant using those assets for the kingdom of God? Pastor Mark Batterson says, “You greatest asset will become your greatest liability if you do not use it for God’s purposes. Is your identity in something other than your relationship to Christ?”

Will you be a follower of Jesus? What would hold you back? What if you were called to go to India as a missionary? Is your greatest asset your house? Staying in Adair county? Being within a few miles of your family? Is it your job? Is it your reputation? To be a follower of Jesus, would you sell that house? Quit your job? Be called a Jesus freak? Fly halfway across the world for two years? This isn’t about sacrificing all that you love; it is about using your greatest loves and your greatest assets for the sake of the kingdom of God. If your identity is in farming for example, God would not ask you to change who you are in order to serve him—He gave you those gifts after all!—but when you find your identity first in Jesus Christ, your gifts for farming would be used in service to God. As a follower of Jesus, that might take you someplace that looks very different than the fields of Iowa just like it did for Donnie in the video.

Looking at the text from Luke again, Jesus said to another man, “Follow me.” But the man replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Why is mission so important? It is the difference between death and life. We have many things to do here on this Earth. Bills to pay, errands to run, dirty diapers to clean, chores to do, people to visit, games to attend . . . but Jesus informs us that what he is calling us to do is of such importance that it takes precedence over everything else. Yes there are other important things to do, but God’s passionate love for the broken and hurting people of this world is so intense that He puts everything else and all of us in service to finding them, healing them and bringing them words of hope.

At the beginning of August, I spoke to you about the importance of being sent out to speak. I gave you the top ten excuses you might hear for why people don’t want to come to church, but I encouraged you to speak up anyway for the sake of their eternal life and salvation. When we are sent out in mission throughout the rest of world, the reasons for not being a Christian are much different. Often, the closest church in 3 hours away and it is an underground church—hidden from the authorities Why? Because it’s illegal to be a Christian. In some places, when you become a Christian, you are at risk to be killed if your neighbors find out or disowned by your family who are of a different faith. People often don’t have a job, live in poverty, don’t have a Bible, are illiterate anyway and have never heard the story of Jesus. We are sent out in mission because there are people around the world who need to hear Jesus’ words of life.

Back to Luke chapter 9, “Another man said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” Will you be a follower of Jesus? If so, you must do more than talk about it, you must start doing it. There are no doubt many reasons to turn back from this path and many excuses for why it won’t work for you. Moses certainly have a great deal of excuses when he was called by God in the reading from Exodus today and I bet that you are no different. But Jesus calls us to keep our eyes on Him alone and follow wherever he leads. When we start looking at ourselves, we’ll find many faults and weaknesses, when we look back we’ll start clinging to all we’ve left behind, but when we your eyes are on Jesus, you begin trusting Him to provide for all that you need.

Will you be a follower of Jesus? Followers of Jesus go to places they never intended on going, using their gifts for the sake of serving others with their eyes locked on their leader, their provider, their protector and their savior. You were called in today, to be sent out in mission. If God is pulling at your heart this morning to follow Him into the mission field, don’t stifle the spirit. There are forms in your pews that I would invite you to fill out and return to me, whether it is through the offering plate, after the service or sometime this week. There is no doubt that God is calling us into mission, but where we go and what we do is based on who he calls. My hope and prayer is that we begin a process today that sends out a small group of people on a short-term mission trip. The next several weeks, we’ll be meeting to pray and discern. The next few months, we’ll be planning and preparing. Finally, by next spring or early summer, I envision a group being sent out in mission for Christ.
But even if you don't feel called to be on such a trip, you still have an essential part to play. We need every follower of Jesus to be on board in order to make this mission successful. We need people gifted in prayer, planning, travel, organization, and giving as well as those making the trip because we are ALL called in to be sent out.
Jesus Christ had a mission on Earth--to preach the forgiveness of sins so that you might have faith in his promise of eternal life. The message is still the same and so is the mission. Amen.